The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland will be among 53 nations to go into the qualifying draw for the Euro 2024 Qualifying Groups on Sunday at 11 AM.
The Draw will be televised live on RTÉ 2 TV.
Germany will be the host nation and are automatically qualified. The draw will take place in the Festhalle Exhibition Centre in Frankfurt.
It will rekindle memories of the Euro 2020 draw which took place in the Convention Centre in Dublin. A lot has happened in the world and in Irish football since that day four years ago.
The 53 teams that participate in the qualifying draw are seeded based on the overall rankings of the UEFA Nations League 2022/23 and will be allocated to ten qualification groups (seven groups of five teams and three groups of six teams). Russia and Belarus are excluded from the tournament.
There are a few pairings and combinations that are not permitted or linited to a single pairing based on politics, climate and geography but none of them directly impact on the Irish nations.
The Republic of Ireland are in Pot 3, Northern Ireland are in Pot 5.
The draw will commence from the highest ranked to the lowest so we will know the strong teams in each group when the Irish balls are drawn.
The ten group winners and the ten group runners-up qualify directly for the final tournament. The three remaining spots will be completed with the teams that qualify through the playoffs in March 2024.
The qualification matches will take place in March, June, September, October and November of 2023 with the Play-Offs in March 2024 and the Finals in Germany between the 14th of June and the 14th of July 2024.
Now then it is just time to sit back and see what the fates have in store for us.
